Where He Went
by finnysea
Summary: Sequel to Where Did He Go? ...Francis is gone, but a shimmering angel is born. An angel meant to guard, an angel that wastes time. But after one more trip to the Earth, will this new seraph be satisfied? Yaoi, pre-chracter death, I do not own Hetalia!


A lighted figure, once wounded and lifeless, peeked over the edge of a cloud, propped up on shining elbows. The world's image below was narrowed down to a single house shivering with memories. With a tilt of the haloed head, the half-human sighed painfully. Heaven was pleasant—it was heaven, of course—but lonesome. Seeing old relatives, awaiting pets of his childhood, and gloating about who saw Heaven first was fantastic. Nevertheless, the angel left someone behind. More accurately, he left behind three people.

The figure felt a wet nudge from behind. Aline, a Barbet dog of negative twenty years old, panted behind her passed on master. She was his new companion these days. When her master first made his way into the field of golden wheat, right inside the pearly gates, she raced to him. Aline had wondered what he was doing here so early. Her part-time owners were old, a withering grey, and teetering as they stood outside of the gate upon arrival. The French man she remembered as a giggling young boy was dressed in heavy camouflage and wearing a battered helmet, still in his thirties. Presently, he was donned in pure white robes that swirled with his every movement. On his first days in heaven, the Frenchman had been in a merry mood amongst old friends. Lately, though, he tended to sit on the fluffy bunch of clouds and stare down at the quiet cobalt home.

Relatives, pets, and allies began to worry about him. Did he not find peace in this place crafted by beings with divine powers? Over time, the other angels found it easier to leave the French man to his own devices, wondering about the family he abandoned on Earth. The Frenchman started to long for his home on the ground. Heaven was just too counterfeited with every single cherub being so kind and generous. Where were the dark folds and humanity's dust under the rug?

The curly Barbet rammed her nose into her master's back once more, her anger growing. He hadn't played ball with her since he started to watch the house. The French angel was waiting for something to happen. Aline was waiting to play with the squeaky sphere of plastic. She whined in the man's ear again and he slowly revolved around.

With a cheerless chuckle, the bright form jostled the dog's mud colored ears, "Sorry, _mon chien, _I can't play with you right now. I have some watching to do. Things seem a little damp without me down there."

Aline barked in annoyed response. This was Heaven; what could be more perfect, more pleasant? There were fair grain fields to scamper and roll in, magnificent mansions to continue Earthly functions in, and more friends than you could ever imagine. The man was just being ungrateful of his area of final rest. The Barbet ambled away in a cloud of frustration.

"_Au revoir! _Ah," the Frenchman murmured, rubbing his side, "I guess that wound hasn't fully healed yet, though I've been here for two months. Finally! There's my little maple leaf with Iggy. Oh, Al woke up, too."

Down below, a little blond boy shuffled out of his bedroom, a cat with crinkled ears on his bare heels. His older brother, a slightly chubby child in glasses, grumbled after the boy from the room adjacent to his. The hallway was shadowy with the cavernous night looming over everything in the house. Outside a dog piercingly howled. The Frenchman above covered his ears as the younger boy jumped. The poor baby, the winged seraph thought. He had very few chances to do this, but the French guardian angel had to help his family, just one more time. Sighing, the man looked both ways around his cloud warily. Finally, he spread his feathery wings and touched the Earth for the last time.

The dog, a large slobbering Mastiff, was still singing to the moon when the angel floated down beside him. He banged his brindle body against the fence separating his lawn from the boys' house. This mutt, mused the man fondly, will he ever shut his mouth? He put a shimmering hand on the dog's wrinkly head and the beast grew quiet with sleep. Pure rest from a life ended. Robes touching the ground, the cherub stroked the snoring scalp of the mongrel.

"You just needed a break. You're elderly, have fathered plenty of pups, and only bark for friends. Sleep, old mutt. My boys need their rest," he whispered.

Looking to the indigo house with white shutters across the yard, the dog-tamer noticed his boys were no longer in the hallway. In the kitchen, the maple leaf was carrying the cat in his short arms. His brother was stretching his tiny body as far as it could achieve but he could not reach the faucet for a glass of water. During a trial of flailing hands, the boy nearly sent a green mug to the floor.

"Alfred, stop it! If you knock over something, we'll wake Daddy up!" the younger brother snapped, "Iggy, stop complaining."

Alfred ignored this and tried once again to reach the faucet. Iggy meowed angrily, thrashing to get out of the babyish hold he was in. Moving quickly, the Frenchman was inside his prior home once more to save his boys. Lightly, he gave Alfred a boost that appeared, to mortals, as a leap. The cherub smiled as both boys quietly cheered in awe and started to pour two glasses of clear liquid. He also settled Iggy down by being thoroughly scratched by the moody feline. Of all beings, animals were the ones who could still feel and see him. In Iggy's case, feel, see, and loathe him.

"Still hate me, huh? After all the times I _didn't _throw you out in the rain!" the angel laughed.

This scene hurt like the rip in his flesh. If he were alive, he or Arthur would be downstairs, barely awake and wondering why children always wanted water in the middle of the night. They'd shamble up to the boys' separate rooms and deliver the desired water. There'd be the confusion back in the master bedroom as well. If Arthur awoke, the Frenchman had to rearrange himself to cuddle Arthur again. If the once-living man was forced out of bed, he'd have to half shove his significant other out of the center of the bed. It was a painful ballet, but a pleasing dance all the while.

"Let's go back to bed," Alfred suggested after the water was downed, "I have show and tell tomorrow and my baseball isn't going to show itself."

"Yes, it's two hours past your bedtime," the angel nagged.

Nothing. The boys couldn't hear or see him. He watched them shuffled off to the winding stairs. The angel sat on the counter. The hardest part of being dead was seeing everyone you cared about on Earth but never being able to reach out and grasp their hand again. It was similar to looking into a sound proof glass room. The glass room was stuffed with the world. You had everything you could ever imagine outside, but the things you've always imagined are just that: they are only there to be imagined, never to be succeeded.

The French seraph got off his seat and walked around the house. It was just like he remembered with a few key points stabbing deeper than they should. His wedding photo, placed on the fireplace mantel, was annoyingly cheerful. He and his groom in white tuxedos, blushing rose petals in the air, a bouquet ready to be tossed. The frame to the photo was a delicately carved piece of wood, with doves and angels swooping into the newlyweds. A reflective hand caressed the picture. His sons' birth certificates were next. Matthew Bonnefoy-Kirkland and Alfred Bonnefoy-Kirkland, the two sheets of paper read. Skipping over generic photos of family members he met up above and past vacations, the angel met his family photo. Alfred was pouting slightly because his tie was strangling him but he forgot it when he was allowed to sit in Arthur's lap. Mattie, the maple leaf, had his hair tied back. Cute, the angel thought lovingly. The living version of the angel and his groom were sitting on a striped couch with the whole family in their capable arms.

"Why did I leave this behind?" the seraph pondered aloud with a cringe.

"Francis?"

Knocking over the coffee table behind him, the Frenchman stared into the exhausted face of his lover, Arthur. All of the breath in both men, though one didn't require it any longer, was gripped by iron reins. Arthur shook faintly and reached a paled hand out to touch the angel's glowing blonde hair. Human touch was shocking and warm. In heaven everyone felt the same: soft and smelling of tulips. Arthur's hand was callused, his fingers were cool, and the hand was shaking.

"You can see me, I suppose?" the angel half-asked, nuzzling the hand.

"You're not alive," Arthur moaned, "What are you doing here? Matthew said he saw something shiny when he and Alfred came downstairs. Guess that was you?"

The man once called Francis smiled, "_Oui_. I helped our little superhero get up to the faucet. I just came down to look in on things up close and personal one last time."

Arthur's face darkened a little, "So you've been here before and didn't tell anyone?"

"You're not supposed to be able to see me!" the French man retorted, "Artie, can you do something for me?"

Arthur nodded as the Frenchman carried on, "Make sure the boys don't forget me. I need them to remember where I went and how. Tell them I wasn't the man they thought I was. I didn't die a hero. I died a sham. The bombs were exploding everywhere, all the troops were retreating, and one man, frightened and young, was stuck under a broken bridge. I raced over and fell right into the trap. A knife pulled from there, a well timed bomb, and I was dead. I had borrowed a helmet from a dead enemy and I was killed trying to save one of our own. All because of a switch of helmets…"

"Francis, I don't care how you died. The point is you're gone. Can't you come back? I mean, you're here and all…" Arthur pleaded.

The angel shook his head and kissed the hand. A million messages from the kiss pulsed into the Frenchman's head. This British man was tired. Raising two children, keeping a job, and taking care of the house was hard to do on his own. Mattie and Alfred tried to help but two young children can only do so much. He saw the pain on the day when a letter and a purple piece of metal were shipped to the house. He felt how little worth was in the flashy heart. The angel stroked his lover's cheek. Oddly enough, looking at his own hand, the cherub's holy light was getting dimmer.

"A Purple Heart isn't a beating heart," Arthur croaked before snuggling into the dulling figure's chest.

"I know it isn't, _mon chèri,_" the being said.

"And what the hell do you mean, 'for one last time?'" Arthur whimpered, "Aren't you coming back? If you can't, why'd you waste your visit on tonight?"

The angel's gleam started to dim more, "Arthur, my sweet songbird, I only have two chances to come down here. I used one up checking on friends and chasing around cars. _Maybe_ I wrecked some havoc. You can't prove anything," he chuckled a little, "That was wasted. This time I wanted to share one important event with my boys. I was about to go upstairs and see you, but-"

An excruciating surge went through the angel. An otherworldly force was yanking the cherub back to the sky. As the two were forced apart, Arthur stepped away, his balled up fist over his chest. Could the hand motion be a wave of farewell? The guardian angel had been on Earth for too long. His heavenly light was dimming as he stayed on the weakly lighted Earth. The Hand was trying to save him. For an immediate and burning second, Arthur and Francis touched fingertips, cool to perfect. It was their last human to angel contact.

For the next sixty five years, the angel watched his home from a distance, back on his swirling cloud. He watched as Alfred stuck his hand into the cookie jar, Matthew had his first kiss with a smart aleck, Iggy befriended a longhaired feline, and Arthur settled into his half empty bed every night. Alfred and Matthew moved out and on. Arthur preferred to stay in the azure house and wait for the day when the Hand would come for him. It did, forty years into the sixty five. Arthur died, buried in the ground, while an angel with a pink glow joined the French figure in the sky mansions. A rather irritable feline, his kidney broken, joined Aline in prancing around the golden streets. Finally, sixty two years later, Matthew tripped into heaven, followed by his brother three years later.

"Welcome home, boys," the pink angel and shimmering angel said together.

As they strolled to the mansion floating on air, the American angel asked, "So, uh, did you see me stick my hand in the cookie jar?"

* * *

I thought of this late at night and wrote it down. Hope you enjoy it, and maybe feel a bit better?


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